Sister Helen
by PinkWhirlWind
Summary: It's a retelling of the Maxwell Church Massacre


Sister Helen

by Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing.

Warning: Graphic violence, death

It wasn't his life.

Maybe there just wasn't enough of his own life to flash before his eyes.

Maybe her life was his life.

Maybe he was seven and just didn't know how to follow the rules yet.

He could remember her fingers parting his hair, gently pulling it into the first braid he'd ever had. There was human touch, smoothing through his long brown hair, warm fingers touching his scalp. Her hand on his shoulder, and then her smile, so beautiful, and to him she was the sun.

Not that he'd ever seen the sun yet and he didn't know he hadn't seen the sun. There was a sky that looked like it had a sun and you could see it if you got to the right place in the colony, which was pretty much not wherever he had always been.

He remembered holding her hand, her hand so warm and gentle around his, and he felt like someone, someone important, as she walked him to school.

There was a garden behind the church and there were flowers and carrots. He remembered running down the path, his bare feet feeling the precious dark soil in which food grew. She told him about things called chickens on a place called Earth, and he nodded, feeling like he knew stuff now. The carrot she'd pulled from the precious dark soil, dusted off and given to him had been such a pretty color. She'd taken a bite of it and given it back. He'd thought it was going to hurt his teeth and he didn't have any teeth in the front on that day anyway, but he put it between his back teeth and bit down. The carrot crunched, sweet and cool in his mouth. He'd jumped up and down, run circles around her as she laughed.

She wasn't always right about things though. He knew where food came from and it didn't come out of dirt no matter how thick it got. There had been plenty of dirt in his life before the Church and ain't none of it ever hid any food.

She taught him about seeds, which were like little information packets. If you put them in the dirt they'd make carrots or pea plants. He didn't believe her so they'd gotten one to start on the kitchen counter. Every day he'd climbed up on the counter to look at and he'd squealed when it started to change, little legs reaching out of it and then green leaves. Then they'd put the little thing in a pot of dirt and Duo kept it in his room, calling it Bob and giving it some of his water every day.

She was so beautiful to him and everytime he saw her he felt like the room was lighter, safer.

Standing at the front of the church, the walls opened and crumpled by the mech battle that had broken all the buildings in the neighborhood, wearing cast off priest clothes, cut down for him and still too big, for room to grow, he stood there, a hardness settling into purple eyes.

He knew what came next.

Sister Helen knelt where the altar had been. Her bloodied and shattered hands hung at her side. Bodies of people that didn't matter to Duo lay around the sanctuary. There was a slight red mist to the air, or that could have been his vision.

A man in body armor stood next to the sister, his pistol already pressed to her temple.

He hadn't ever killed anyone yet. He'd seen death. He knew death. He knew how to death.

He ran even before the bullet surged.

Whatever thoughts showed in her eyes, they stayed there as definite red and gray exited her other temple.

His adopted mother tipped towards the splatter pattern that had been her thoughts. Only then did the rebel soldier look in his direction. There was a smirk on the adult man's face. Jumping, launching from an overturned pew, Duo landed on the man's chest, little hands grabbing his helmet. Then he bit off the tip of the man's nose.

Screams and blood made the man stagger, his arms wheeling in the air.

One of his buddies laughed, not realizing the depth of danger in being attacked by a baby Shinigami. Feet on the man's weapon belt, a hand on his helmet, Duo pulled a screwdriver from where it had been tucked in his belt. The tip went into the man's eye easy as a soup pouch.

The man fell backwards and Duo rode him down like jumping on a bed.

The other soldiers were hollering and yelling threats.

Hand still on the screwdriver, Duo jerked it free, and turned to hiss at them, blood on his face, his strange violet eyes filled with rage and insane satisfaction.

Their words were in a language he didn't understand. All adults lied. He fled, racing out and into the world he'd known before the church, but smarter now.


End file.
